Watchorn, M.A., Hamilton, P.B., Patterson, R.T. 2013. The paleolimnology of Haynes Lake, Oak Ridges Moraine, Ontario, Canada: documenting anthropogenic and climatic disturbances. Environmental Earth Sciences. v. 68, p. 1823-1834.
Haynes Lake is a small kettle lake located on the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM), and is within the Greater metropolitan area of Toronto, Ontario; Canada’s most populous region. Lake sedimentation, flux rates, diatoms and thecamoebians extracted from a benthic core were used as biological proxies to evaluate changes in water quality through time as a function of anthropogenic activity and changing climate. High-resolution details of the sedimentary history of the lake were determined through x-ray analysis of the sediment cores. There were two clear periods of disturbance to the Haynes Lake ecosystem from ca 8500 YBP through to ca A.D. 2003 which were significant enough to cause changes in lake sedimentation, the diatom flora, and thecamoebian fauna. The first disturbance was concomitant with the decline in global temperatures following the Hypsithermal Climate Optimum (ca. 4700 YBP). However, the most significant disruption to Haynes Lake over the last 8500 years was the settlement of Europeans and subsequent urban development (ca. A.D. 1875), including the construction of a road immediately adjacent to the lake. Anthropogenic disturbance of inorganic clays in the recent paleosediment record (<5cm) is indicative of more recent eutrophication events.